


The Adventure of the Snow Leopard

by kalypsobean



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When there is no case to solve, a mystery will still find Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Adventure of the Snow Leopard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Greens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greens/gifts).



It is vaguely pathetic, and they see so much yet fail to observe. At least, it would be if he devoted enough time to considering it, and if feeling something like pity required thought and prior study.  
These people, though; they seem isolated, unconnected, as they drift through the park at their differing speeds and exist independently of each other while sharing the same space. None of them will remember that the ice cream cart serves eight flavours of ice cream, or that the vendor has black hair and a fake Italianesque accent he learned from television (The Sopranos, most likely, given the awkward cadence).

The child is a boy, eight years old (based on his height and the approximate length of his femur) and has been trying not to cry because his cheeks are slowly turning red and his hands are scrunched into fists; he is squashing a fluffy white toy in one of them. He isn't the only person not moving, but he is an interesting study.  
It has been ten minutes and thirteen seconds.

A blade of grass will break the same way no matter where on the planet it is (depending on access to light, water, and nutrients, to say the least). The grass here is well-tended, reasonably green, has been cut mechanically in the last four days, and is comparatively ill-frequented.   
He folds one blade in half down the middle and presses it between his right thumb and forefinger. It cracks and leaks only a tiny bit of moisture onto his skin. He will remember this and note it against rainfall when the statistics for the last twenty four hours have been posted. His own measurements indicate zero point three inches (but this is converted from millimetres and does not account for mist and dew).  
This has taken nineteen seconds. The boy is now crying.

_Well, it's not a murder,_ he thinks.   
The brain must be exercised in a variety of ways otherwise standard tasks will become routine; learned patterns which are difficult to break and shield various minute differences that could prove crucial to finding a solution.

The boy is wearing trousers which are unevenly discoloured. They appear to be damp (they are not in any discernible and commercially available pattern and their positioning corresponds with alterations in the line of the fabric); these indicate that the boy has recently been playing near water, probably something that splashes, as his shirt appears to be unscathed (but not unmarked - there are grass stains consistent with landing on his back and sliding). Zero point three inches of rain (8 millimetres) would most likely have left puddles, some of which may not have evaporated.  
This could be any path edged by grass; this does not narrow the possibilities any further than determining that the boy has grown more distressed.

It has been fifteen minutes and thirty two seconds.  
Nobody has approached the boy. None of the people who have walked past appear to be concerned parents (if it was a weekday, they would be workers, they would be truants, they would be homeless, and the boy should have been in school). The boy does not appear (based on approximate expense of his clothing, his even and complexly styled hair, his lack of toys) to belong to any of the groups of children in the immediate vicinity. Likely scenario: separated from guardian (babysitter or nanny, not a parent, unless one like his father in which case it would probably be a nanny who speaks three languages and has a PhD in child development), told to stay in one place and only approach an adult in a recognisable position of authority (today's kind officers of the Central Park Precinct are due to walk past in another three minutes and eleven seconds). It probably happened in a crowd (there was a tour group going towards the fountain seventeen minutes ago), so his absence wasn't noticed immediately.

He needs to act. _If it's not murder, it's depravity; always one or the other. Human debauchery has no limit._ There are two minutes and forty six seconds until he can hand this problem over to someone who is infinitely more qualified to deal with a relatively well-off child with parental abandonment issues and return to merely consulting on matters which are of a more lurid interest. Until then...  
"Excuse me," he says (he accidentally bumped into this exact person, who just happened to be wearing a particular style of jacket commonly sold in areas of a lower socio-economic status, utilitarian and carefully not fitted, Watson is right that he could watch less television). "I'm looking for Ivan, do you know him? About this high, looks like he hasn't shaved in three days and smells of rather heavily of tobacco?"  
The man turns around and looks at him; he moves his head up and down but won't remember anything because he's too emotional. Rage, probably; this isn't the first time today he's been interrupted.   
There are some people who can't be helped. The man leaves; he has a scar, strangely positioned on the back of his neck, from which dark blue ink descends over his skin and below his collar.

The boy has stopped crying but his breathing is irregular.   
Panic interferes with rational thinking, leading to hasty and ill-considered decisions which are generally lacking in information.   
He kneels down; he doesn't reach for the boy but he makes eye contact. "In ninety seconds, two police officers will walk past, coming from that way." He points, the way the boy came before he arrived here, to this unique confluence of events. "You will go to them and ask them to take you to the zoo, where your babysitter is waiting with your sister."  
The boy pulls his toy (used to be white, shared with someone who has tied a ribbon around its neck) to his chest and blinks.

"A ha! Officers!" The boy runs to them and pulls on the trouser leg of the one nearest. 

His phone rings.  
It's been one hour and thirty six minutes.  
"Captain Gregson! I trust you have some new matter on which I may be of assistance?"  
(Gregson calls him first and Bell second, unless by some miracle of distance alone, Bell beats him to a scene. This only happens when they are assigned to two new cases at once, and this is a not a busy time of year for murders.)  
"A bit far from home, aren't we?" he says. "I happen to be nearby. I shall meet you outside in ten minutes."

The boy is between the two officers, and looks back once. 

He turns his phone off before walking the other way. He puts his head down and his hands in his pockets (just like anyone else who senses it is suddenly two degrees colder, and it obscures his height and distinguishing features, in case the Russian is still nearby). At this time of day, particularly given the crowd density and the possibility of meeting the tour group (tourists who want to pretend they are in movies can be quite unpleasant to the ear) he judges it more efficient to walk along 5th Avenue.

The game is afoot and his mind is ready.


End file.
